


Lighter and More Distant Than a Snow Fall

by ALC_Punk



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Audio 120: The Magic Mousetrap, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:08:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22594561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ALC_Punk/pseuds/ALC_Punk
Summary: The Doctor doesn't quite remember meeting Queenie Glasscock, but she certainly remembers him. Even if they've both aged beyond recognition.
Kudos: 1





	Lighter and More Distant Than a Snow Fall

**Author's Note:**

> Queenie is one the tragedies of Big Finish: a interesting, clever, entertaining character who never shows up again and/or comes to a bad end. I found myself not wanting to leave her with a life of make-believe and toys. 
> 
> Also, Twelve makes an excellent courier, even if he's not fond of being put to such a task. 
> 
> Theoretically, this is set right before Bill Potts appears on the scene and after Clara has been lost to time. And on Queenie's side, well, far in her future.

"Hello, Doctor."

The man froze, startled. He turned slowly to find a woman watching him, something dark and unfathomable in her eyes. "I'm afraid you have me at a disadvantage."

Her mouth twisted a little, but she still replied, "Queenie Glasscock. I don't expect you to remember me. It's been so long for the both of us, after all. I wasn't certain it was you, at first. But then, well, there's just something about you that is very memorable, even in a nuthouse."

Aside from which, she never expected to remember herself all that often.

Shifting from foot to foot for a moment, he tilted his head and studied her, then slowly shook his head. "Sorry. Can't place the name or the face."

"Or the place? It never was your strong-suit." Queenie turned from him and drifted to the window, staring out into the white-flecked darkness. There was something terribly fragile about her, as though she'd been broken and put back together with inadequate sealant. A little china doll, who would shatter from even a short height.

He followed her to the window, watching the snow in the deepening twilight.

"Switzerland," she offered quietly.

"Ah. Yes. Always meant to visit." It was a lie. He'd never been one for places like Switzerland. Too much peace and quiet. Far too much snow; also too placid for his tastes.

"No you haven't." One side of her mouth twitched as she glanced at him sideways. Her fingers toyed with the cuff of one sleeve. There was a thread that was slowly unraveling. "Things didn't go so well, last time, after all."

Memories were strange things. He turned from studying her to watch the snow again. "Things rarely do, around me."

If he could remember her, if he could place Switzerland... but all that he could discern was swirling snow and darkening night. There was no gamine face, no quick flash of brilliance to remind him of which of his selves had encountered her. Nothing clever in standing in a window, watching the snow fall forever on the mountains of Halbrook sanatorium.

"All of the best people are," he murmured, breaking the silence.

"I'm not, of course." Casting him a glance, Queenie's smile deepened, "I don't know that I ever was. But it's easy to get over the little hurts and pains. The deeper... they take time. And I've had time, here at Halbrook. Once I was myself again, I didn't feel as though I could leave."

"As though you should?"

"Routine is as comforting as replaying chess matches you've lost."

_Chess_... He knew about chess, once. A sharper glance at Queenie, peeling back the years that he didn't normally pay attention to. Someone had once taken him to task about that. She'd liked her wrinkles, hadn't liked her age lines, had decried his inability to tell the difference in her appearance as the years passed...

Not quite a memory, but a sense of their shared past, flooded him. Another life he hadn't saved. The ache in his chest deepened, and he wondered how much regret one Time Lord could carry. Buckets, if he was any judge, eons, if he wasn't.

"Your father."

Her frame stiffened, her eyes suddenly flashing as she whirled to look at him. "He would be as dead today, anyway. It's been seventy years, after all."

"I'm sorry."

She sniffed and turned back to the night and the snow. "Isn't everyone."

The bite resonated with someone else he'd known, but the name and the face escaped him. "How do I make amends, Queenie Glasscock?"

"It's not for you to do so, Doctor. Hadn't you realized that yet?"

Bending forward, he set his forehead against the ice-cold glass of the window, and closed his eyes. "I don't think I ever shall."

"Mmm. You didn't used to seem such a martyr. But," she heaved out a sigh that sounded terribly final. "Time changes us all. The world spins on, and we're left to recover what we can from lives which were never what we thought they were."

The quiet closed in again, and then she added, "It's my turn soon. Lola told me the other day that Harry misses me dearly. I think I should like to not be missed anymore."

Names again, resonances which didn't quite match with a history that was patched with the destruction and the un-destruction of Gallifrey and her environs. Charley Pollard hadn't caused such histrionics, and he could remember the both of her these days.

"Goodbye, Queenie Glasscock."

"Doctor." Her hand touched his arm, fingers stroking down until she clasped his hand in both of hers. "It was a good life. I've few regrets. And that's all anyone can say, isn't it?"

He stepped back from the window, drawing her with him. Her face resolved into a memory, or a dream. "I have a letter for you. At least... I think it's for you."

The paper was faded, crumpled from him taking it out to stare at it as he'd tried to remember to whom it belonged. He turned it over, reading the name there again, and then set it in her hands. "I think I was brought here as a letter-carrier. I'm not sure I should have allowed that."

"Daddy..." Queenie's voice was suddenly choked as she stroked over the letters of her name, scrawled in almost unrecognizable writing. "It's his last letter to me, before it all... Before 1926."

"I didn't read it."

Lie.

Queenie's gaze sharpened on him, but she didn't call his bluff. "Goodbye, Doctor. I believe you can find your way out."

"Yes."

He watched her walk away from him, her gait slow, but steady. If he'd done his maths correctly, and sums had been one of his better strong-suits, at least once, she was older than most women born in her era. Perhaps it was the clear mountain air. Perhaps she had merely been waiting.

When she was gone from sight, corner turned, and the sounds of her shuffling quietened, he glanced one last time out the window and then straightened.

Regrets. There were many in his life, and he had more than a few to lay to rest. And a promise to return to.

He just hoped that Nardole wasn't too annoyed that his leaving for tea had stretched to such length.


End file.
